Recently, I watch a documentary on Netflix called Mission Blue. It chronicles the life work of Dr. Sylvia Earle, acclaimed marine biologist who has worked ceaselessly to research and advocate for the protection of the world’s oceans.
If you are a Netflix subscriber, I can’t recommend enough that you watch this documentary. It gave me a whole new appreciation of the wondrous life that inhabits our oceans and how it’s survival is paramount to the sustainability of our planet as we know it.
Near the end of the film, the director asked Dr. Earle if she wishes she could have been born today. To my surprise, she answered yes. I honestly thought she would answer that she was happy to have been born in 1935 and lived in the years she did. After all, she was born as a child of the Greatest Generation. She was a trailblazer for women and achieved so much success and acclaim for her life work. With climate change and suspect world leadership, we live in gloom-and-doom times at present. Why would she want to live now and see the world disintegrate right in front of her eyes?
Well, the reason why is because she is an optimist! Even though she has seen the gradual destruction of the oceans in her decades of work, she feels that this present generation has the ability to correct the wrongs of the past and make a sustainable future for life on this planet.
I’m always amazed by how great people always see the sunny side of life, no matter what negative obstacles we face. The Greatest Generation is known as such because they overcame terrible obstacles and saved themselves from being conquered by fascists. They sacrificed for the greater good. Yet, they were also a generation that espoused racist mindsets, saw women as second-class citizens and polluted our world in the name of profit. While not perfect, I feel this generation (in general) is more progressive in it’s mind-set when compared on these and other issues. So therefore, we are presently the greatest generation right now!! We need to take this greatness and solve our planet’s problems now without making any excuses. Greatness does not make excuses and use the word, “can’t”. The time is now to live up to our Greatest Generation billing so it gives an opportunity for the next generation to try to top us.
